How do you describe your own art practice?
I mainly work with video, photography and text. The ability to be in two places at once through the senses has at multiple times served as a point of departure in my practice. The senses are closely connected to remembrance; they can function as an echo from the past or from another place. With these thoughts in the back of my head, I aim to amplify the perception of the viewer by creating (moving) images and sounds that balance on the edge between alienation and recognition. I find humour and intuition very important while working on these things.
What was your first experience with art?
I remember that, as a child, I often found art a bit haunting. It kind of scared me in a pleasant way.
What is your greatest source of inspiration?
Certain weather conditions, books, various sounds and smells, landscapes and the people that surround me.
What do you need in order to create your work?
A balance between solitude and coffee breaks with others.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’m working on the Iceland Academy of the Arts MA degree show. I’ll be showing two essayistic videos focusing on different experiences of sound.
Sounds of the Sea, Crickets and Translucent Yellow combines two identical statues with each other: one of them is situated in a park close to Nagoya, the other one next to the sea in a small town in the Netherlands. With this video I want to experience whether I can combine the sounds surrounding the two statues with one another.
In the video Yellowhammer Infrasound, two narrators are searching for an infrasound array that is placed in a small forest in Iceland. The array is placed there in order to measure the trembling of the earth and to calculate volcanic activity. Infrasound is lower than the human hearing can perceive; when the two characters reach the forest where the infrasound array should be placed, all they hear is bird sounds. The sound of the yellowhammer draws their attention away from the infrasound.
What work or artist has most recently surprised you?
The novel The Museum of Unconditional Surrender by Dubravka Ugrešić.
